What is Alzheimer’s?

Alzheimer’s disease is a neurological disorder in which the death of brain cells causes memory loss and cognitive decline. A neurodegenerative type of dementia, the disease starts mild and gets progressively worse.

What Causes Alzheimer’s?

Like all types of dementia, Alzheimer’s is caused by brain cell death.It is a neurodegenerative disease, which means there is progressive brain cell death that happens over a course of time. The total brain size shrinks with Alzheimer’s – the tissue has progressively fewer nerve cells and connections.

How Common is Alzheimer’s Disease?

In 2010, some 4.7 million people of 65 years of age and older were living with Alzheimer’s disease in the US.

The 2013 statistical report from the Alzheimer’s Association gives a proportion of the population affected – just over a tenth of people in the over-65 age group have the disease in the US. In the over-85s, the proportion goes up to about a third.